With funders requiring open access and researchers increasingly aware of it, now is the time for universities to make significant headway in providing a coherent plan for encouraging wider open access adoption. Neil Jacobs from Jisc provides an overview of what actions have been taken around the sector and outlines ten specific areas that institutions should consider further in order to help the entire UK higher education sector adapt to the changing policy landscape.

Recently, I’ve been working with higher education (HE) research sector bodies to explore the experiences of a group of UK higher education institutions as they forge ahead in their efforts to implement open access (OA). I wanted to find out whether the experiences of these bodies – specifically, the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA), Research Libraries UK (RLUK), Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) and UK Council of Research Repositories (UKCoRR) – can help others setting out along the same road.

At the same time, researchers and their institutions were gearing up for the latest set of OA policy developments, including July’s OA policy review by Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the release of the Higher Education and Funding Council for England (HEFCE)’s updated requirements for next year’s Research Excellence Framework (REF). What’s more, as of last month, the Wellcome Trust requires the lead researcher in any project applying for funding to quote an ORCID identifier within their bid.

As institutions and researchers get to grips with these latest developments, now seems like a good time to offer our findings as a set of ‘top tips’ for those seeking to make progress in their own OA journey. Here they are:

Draw up a policy requiring research output availability in line with the REF

Getting your own policy right will enable your institution to commit resources and it will help to ensure that academics understand both the requirements and the benefits of OA practice.

Assess your current position on OA

Explore your institution’s OA preparedness and do the same for its researchers; workshops and other activities are good ways to break down barriers and develop a team-working approach. Work up a baseline assessment so you can identify priority areas to work on first.

For many a hard-pressed researcher, OA seems to be more about admin and compliance than anything else. A clear, effective communications programme will help to ensure that researchers understand the very real benefits of OA and encourage them to become willingly involved in the necessary workflows. This is a resource-hungry aspect of OA implementation, but it brings rich rewards.

Setting up a standard OA email mechanism for use by publishers, academics and other participants in the process pays dividends by improving communication channels. You will probably need to commit time and resources to establishing systems to monitor the email address and manage workflows. UCL, Lancaster, Newcastle and Warwick universities all employ standard OA emails mechanisms for this purpose.

Resolve the identity issue – implement ORCID

I’ve already mentioned the ORCID system of unique, persistent personal identifiers. It enables researchers to manage their own professional identity efficiently and it can help to automate many processes for their institutions, such as managing and maintaining records and reporting to the REF.

Jisc has recently brokered a national consortium agreement to help the UK’s higher education institutions implement it quickly, cost effectively and with an enhanced level of technical support.

Exploit tools that will help researchers navigate their way around OA policies

Our SHERPA/FACT service enables researchers to check whether the journal they plan to publish in is compliant with their research funder’s OA policies. It is a reasonably straightforward tool that can make it much easier to conduct checks and avoid mistakes over compliance.

Make sure your repository can support reporting and harvesting of metadata

Standardising the way information is recorded makes it quicker and easier to report to funders and other sector bodies. RIOXX is a metadata application profile that has been developed to help in applying consistency to metadata fields and it can now be implemented in most repositories and Current Research Information Systems (CRISs). What’s more, having standardised metadata extends the reach of research by making it easier to discover. We offer extensive technical support to help repositories aiming to adopt RIOXX.

Record article processing charges (APCs) efficiently

Many funders require information on APCs paid to journals. The same information is vital when you are working with the growing number of journal publishers who will offset APCs against journal subscription charges. Recording these charges accurately will save the institution money and so we have worked with several large funding bodies, including RCUK and the Wellcome Trust, to develop a single, agreed format.

The simple act of including a ‘copy request’ button will enable potential readers to access research from your institution even if it is not published in OA, and it is very easy to do in most repository configurations. You’ll need to prime researchers to look out for such enquiries, but it should be relatively easy for them to fulfil requests for all but older papers held in the repository. Some considerations about adding the button are discussed in this blog post by Richard Poynder.

Install a tracker code to make download data available to the IRUS-UK aggregation service

This is a practical way to monitor your own institution’s download data and compare it with peer institutions so that you can monitor performance of the repository and the reach of research. There are some FAQs on the IRUS website to help you get started.

More information – read our guide and take part in our webinar

Our guide summarises these tips in more detail and includes links to many more sources of information and help. Want to know more? Look out for our webinar taking place during International Open Access week – 19-25 October.

This piece originally appeared on the Jisc blog and is reposted with the author’s permission.

Note: This article gives the views of theauthor, and not the position of the Impact of Social Science blog, nor of the London School of Economics.

About the Author

Dr Neil Jacobs is Head of Scholarly Communications Support at Jisc. In this role, he is responsible for a range of Jisc work that enables UK universities to implement Open Access efficiently and effectively, reflecting the policies of UK Government and (inter)national research funders. He is also involved in Jisc’s negotiations with publishers to transition to Open Access without excessive cost to universities. He maintains close ties with UK research funders, libraries, research managers and domain experts. Neil has been working on Open Access for over 10 years, and in the library and information profession for over 20 years, covering policy, economic, technical and organisational aspects of scholarly communication.

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